“No, I was fond of Fritz. I’d like to pay my respects.”
Gustav had nothing to say to this, just another stern look at Elsbeth, and Alex saw, in one awful second, that all the bullying, the righteous will that used to exorcise itself in rallies now had nowhere to go and had become domestic, Elsbeth’s grief a sign of weakness, something to be overcome.
Erich sat down next to Elsbeth. “Cake. My God, I haven’t seen cake—”
“So?” Elsbeth said, fussing over Erich, touching him. “And what does Gustav say? You’re all right?”
“I’m not dying yet,” Erich said, a forced casualness. “So it’s better than I expected. Can I have some—”
“Come with me,” Gustav said to Alex.
They went into Gustav’s consulting office, a desk and a console dispensary, health posters on the walls, food groups and the circulatory system.
“He’s not dying yet. But he will be. Unless he can get treatment.”
“For what?”
“A guess only? I need to see X-rays to be sure. We don’t have such equipment here.” He looked around the spare office. “I can listen with this,” he said, touching a stethoscope, “but I can’t take X-rays, so I can’t say for sure. Maybe simple pneumonia—which is never simple, of course. Or cancer. It’s possible. But more likely, tuberculosis. A feeling only, but tuberculosis takes its time, and he hasn’t been well for months.” He paused, hesitant. “He is also maybe a little erratic in his mind, I think. Maybe just the fever, maybe— It was common with soldiers. Especially on the eastern front. But that—that’s something you heal yourself. A question of time. The lungs are the problem now. So.”
“But it’s not radiation poisoning.”
“Radiation poisoning?” Gustav said, surprised. “Why would you think such a thing? Where would he be exposed to radiation? Do you think the Soviets are exploding bombs? That would be news.”
“What about the lesions on his legs?”
“Rat bites,” he said, matter of fact. “He said they were forced to work in wet conditions. It’s easy to infect a puncture in the skin.”
“The wet conditions were pitchblende waste. Uranium. They’d be radioactive.”
Gustav looked up. “You’re sure about this? Where? You should go to the authorities with such information.”
“Yes, but first let’s get him well. If it is radiation—”
Gustav shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Everything depends on the exposure—how much, how far away you are. A bomb, of course, death. But other exposures, a matter of weeks, no more. A big exposure, you vomit the first week, less than that the second week, and so on, but almost never more than four. He’s been sick longer than that. So poisoning, no.” He stopped. “Of course, a continued exposure, even a low dose, can lead to cancer. Maybe the case here, I can’t say.”
“What would that mean?”
“Lung cancer? There is no cure for lung cancer.”
“It’s the lungs?”
Gustav nodded. “That’s why I think tuberculosis. He hasn’t been coughing blood. Yet. Otherwise, the signs are there. But I need—”
“An X-ray, I know. So where can we get one?”
“A hospital. But without papers? An escaped prisoner? We are obliged to hand such a person over.”
Alex started to say something, then stopped, pressing the edge of the desk to stay calm. The only doctor they could see.
“And if it is TB? What do we do?”
“Do? Well, in the old days, a sanitarium. Lots of eggs and mountain air. Like Thomas Mann.” A nod to Alex, as if this were a writer’s joke. “Now streptomycin. If you could get it. It’s effective. They’ve only been making it since ’44 but the results with tuberculosis are good.”
“Can you get some? At the hospital?”
“In Berlin? My friend, even penicillin is difficult. We keep asking for more. Streptomycin?”
“So where—?”
“The Americans would have it. Their hospital, down in Dahlem. But that’s only for the military. If you really want to do this, start this treatment, you have to get him to the West.”
“The West?”
“Herr Meier, the Russians think aspirin is a miracle drug. There is nothing over there. The American hospital won’t treat civilians. You have to take him west. The hospitals there—”
“Now? Through the blockade.”
“Yes, thanks to your new friends.” He raised his eyebrows. “Erich told me, you’re a guest of the Soviets. And what will they think, your hosts, of you helping a fugitive?”
Alex looked at him. “Who would tell them? And implicate himself?”
Mutter said nothing, turning this over.
“And meanwhile he’s sick. He’s family.”
“Not yours.”
“No, yours.”
“Let me say again. I can’t help him and neither will the Soviets. You need to get him west.” He looked over, almost pleased. “An interesting dilemma for you.”
“There must be something you could give him. He’s shivering. Even I can hear it when he talks, all the congestion, maybe it’s pleurisy, pneumonia, I don’t know. You’re the doctor.” He stopped. “He won’t have to wait for TB to get him if he doesn’t get through this.”
“You understand, it’s illegal, what you’re asking.”
“You’re a doctor.”
“Now you sound like the Americans. A doctor should answer to a higher authority. What authority, an oath? The conscience? Then everything breaks down.”
“Everything has,” Alex said quietly.
Mutter looked up. “All great humanitarians, the Americans. When it’s someone else on trial. What would they have done, do you think?”